


(Listen to the) Flower People

by allisonbucky



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: (more or less), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Up To CA:TWS, Depression, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Starting Over, Suicidal Thoughts, flower shop au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-01 21:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4036042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allisonbucky/pseuds/allisonbucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?"<br/>"I don't know." </p><p>The one where Steve and Bucky (metaphorically) run away together to try to find what makes them happy, and to live the normal, quiet life they deserve.<br/>Flower Shop not-quite-AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Steve pulled up to the shop, glancing over at Bucky beside him.  
“Are you sure you want to do this, Buck?” Steve asked him for the hundredth time. Bucky gave him a tight smile.  
“Steve. I’ve been back for over a year… I’m alright, I promise. I… I want to do this.” Bucky took a deep breath, laughing slightly as he looked into the eyes of Steve, his best friend, his saviour. “Besides. How much trouble could I possibly get in in a flower shop?”  
Steve barked out a laugh, but the nervous look hadn’t left his eyes yet.  
“You’re probably right. Though, knowing you, you’d find a way,” he added.  
Bucky smirked.  
“Punk.”  
Bucky looked down at himself. The email had said to dress ‘smart-casual’, and he hoped his outfit qualified as such: he was wearing a (borrowed) pale plaid shirt under a blue sweater, paired with dark fitted jeans and brown boots. He had to admit that for all his integrating back to the regular world, he couldn’t shake feeling like his feet were naked when he wore anything but boots. Steve had told him several (possibly too many) times that he looked great, but Bucky was still nervous: this new uniform, of the everyday, regular guy, was still a foreign concept.  
“Okay, okay. I’m going. I’ll, uh, see you later?” Bucky asked slightly uncertainly.  
Steve smiled at him, genuinely this time.  
"You'll be done at four, right? I'll see you at home. And hey,” he called back as Bucky got out the car. “We’re getting out, Buck.”  
Bucky smiled back at his long lost friend.  
“Yeah, Stevie. We’re getting out.”  
\--  
Bucky wandered through the door, immediately met by the scent of hundreds, if not thousands, of different kinds of flowers. He could pick them all out easily – roses, lilies, hydrangeas, bluebottles, daffodils – with his heightened sense of smell. Although Bucky would have thought it would have been overpowering, it was actually just bare of that: there was a light, aired out feel to the shop, the ventilation carefully planned out to stop customers being overwhelmed. Bucky certainly appreciated it.  
He approached the counter, and was faced with a young woman with long strawberry blond hair and a pastel blue polo with a matching cardigan. She looked up at him expectantly, face open and kind, but with an edge to it.  
“Can I help you?” she asked cordially.  
“Uh, yeah, hi, I’m uh, my name is James? I’m here for the-” thankfully she cut off his stuttering. Bucky was kicking himself on the inside for sounding like such a bumbling idiot.  
But the woman didn’t seem too fazed by his nervous disposition.  
“Oh, right! Hi, James, it’s nice to meet you – my name is Lydia – I’m the manager of this place.” She said, smiling now. Bucky exhaled, trying to return her smile without looking intimidating. Or creepy. Either one.  
“So, do you want to follow me to the back, and we’ll have a little chat?” she asked, getting straight to business. Bucky nodded, smiling slightly more easily now.  
“Yeah – Yeah, sure,” he replied. She gave him another soft smile, and then looked over his shoulder.  
“Tanesha? Can you keep an eye on things for a while?”  
Bucky turned round, surprised he hadn’t noticed the teenage girl putting out flower pots at the side of the room. The fact that he hadn’t clocked her both freaked him out and comforted him: it meant his deprogramming was working, that he was no longer thinking as a soldier and had begun thinking as a man.  
But this also made him vulnerable again.  
Shaking this thought off, he followed Lydia to a room at the back of the building, with a small kitchen, some couches and a table – he assumed the staff room. The informal feel to the whole place appealed to Bucky.  
“Okay, so your ‘interview’” – she said this with actual air quotes, almost rolling her eyes – “won’t start until Asher, the owner, gets here? But I thought I could just find out a little more about you in the mean time?” she asked, smiling conspiratorially at him. Bucky decided he liked this girl. She put him at ease.  
“Yeah sure, uh, ask away,” he replied easily.  
“How did you find out about the job?” she asked, clearly starting him out easy. Something about the friendly but cautious way she talked to him told Bucky that Lydia knew more about him than she let on.  
“Uh, I saw it online? Was looking through some job listings, you know, and it seemed like it’d be a good fit for me, ma’am,” he replied. She grinned at him.  
“Please, please, call me Lydia. This place is pretty casual,” she told him, laughing slightly.  
“So, you’re ex-military, right?” she asked casually, but Bucky could see something stirring behind her eyes. He nodded.  
“Yeah, Special Forces. Basically served my whole life,” he said, thinking of the extremely simplified version of his life story SHIELD had told him to adopt as his own. “What gave me away?” He joked, although he knew she’d seen it on his (extremely fabricated) resume.  
Lydia smiled at him, sympathetically. Bucky didn’t miss the slight glance to his hands, clasped on the table – one flesh, one black metal. Since coming back, Tony had equipped Bucky with a brand new arm: this one black, and removable, with fake pads for his fingers and a softer, more matte look than his previous steel arm. For all intents and purposes it was a human arm, save the look. Tony had offered to make it look even more human, but Bucky didn’t see the point: he was different, and wasn’t ashamed of it.  
“Yeah, I got sent back on injury. Luckily I have some very smart friends in high places,” he added, flexing his synthetic fingers. Lydia raised her eyebrows, impressed.  
“Pretty cool,” she murmured.  
“Yeah. Don’t worry, it basically works the same as my regular arm – if not better, so it won’t affect how I work or anything.” This was Bucky’s only reservation about having such an obvious prosthetic – he was sick of people being scared of him.  
“Even if it did it would be fine, James,” Lydia said, smiling at him. For the first time Bucky noticed the silver chain around her neck, dropping into her top; but he could see the square outline. Lydia palmed her dog tags.  
“You served?” he asked, surprised. Not because she was a woman – he understood how the world worked now, how it had evolved – but she didn’t seem like the type: too intellectual, too relaxed.  
She shook her head, slightly sadly.  
“No, uh, my – someone I knew.” She said shortly. Bucky understood immediately.  
“I’m sorry,” he offered. She rolled her eyes, smiling at him.  
“Thanks. But I understand, you know? If things get tough for you, I can help you. Your terms, James.”  
He nodded, struck by Lydia’s empathy.  
“Thanks. I, I appreciate it. To uh,” he rubbed the back of his neck, feeling slightly better about opening up to this woman, “To tell you the truth, this is my first gig in the real world. I’m not joking when I say I’ve been away my whole life.” His new story was much like Natasha’s real one: trained as a kid in Russia, recruited as a spy for the USA, fighting on both sides of any war, never sure who’s orders he was working on, but doing what he did best: point, and shoot. That part was true, at least.  
Of course, this was all ‘classified’. But if Bucky ever let anything slip, it was this version of his life he was to spill out.  
Never a real event. Ever.  
\--  
He and Lydia chatted about the job for a while, about what it entailed – basically, Bucky had to learn a bit about flower arranging, about what different flowers mean, what scents work together. About 20 minutes into Lydia giving him a slightly intense lecture about roses, the owner Asher showed up. He was a tall guy in his thirties with brown eyes and floppy brown hair, and he vaguely reminded Bucky of a Labrador. Bucky’s hopeful boss to be had an overwhelming sense of joy and enthusiasm about him, as if he couldn’t imagine anything more important to the world than making sure people got the right flowers for the right occasion.  
When he took of his bright pink cardigan (which clashed with the pastel blue polo shirt in such an overwhelming way that Bucky was getting a headache just looking at it) Bucky noticed the top half of the man’s right arm was covered in bright realistic floral tattoos, but when he reached for a bouquet of snapdragons on a high shelf, a long jagged scar was revealed on the inside of the man’s bicep, which Bucky immediately assessed was a stab wound.  
He didn’t know what to make of this.  
This was what Bucky still had trouble processing – the complexity of people. He had been trained to read people in a specific way, to make snap judgements about what their actions would be. Bucky could look at someone, at how they hold themselves, their facial expressions – and he could make a pretty accurate guess on how much they notice of their surroundings, the speed of their reflexes… how easy they were to kill.  
But what really got him, was how much people really seemed to contradict themselves. It bothered him that Asher could have such a gentle nature, yet adapt to an authoritative role with such ease. That Lydia, with her somewhat cold and academic exterior, could be so empathetic.  
In his head, Bucky knew this boiled down to the fact that for so long he’d seen people only as targets. Because if he began to think of them as people, confusing, interesting, individuals, he might just start to think twice about putting a bullet through their head.  
And weapons don’t think.  
\--  
“So, James. Tell me a bit about why you think you’d be a good addition to our little shop here,” said Asher with his easy smile after a couple of hours of induction to the shop.  
After doing a bit of research on job interviews, Bucky had prepared a vague, stock answer about how he liked to work in a team, was organised and punctual, etcetera; but for once, he decided to go with something close to the truth.  
Nervously, Bucky looked somewhere above Asher’s eyes.  
“Well, uh, I’ve spent most of my life in the armed forces, where you can’t think about people much – who they are? I guess what I like about being a florist is that you need to, to interact with people? Find out something about them. I know I don’t have much experience in this, this area,”  
He rubbed the back of his neck, laughing out a breath. What the fuck was he saying? But Asher was looking at him encouragingly. Something about the man’s open expression made him want to continue.  
(He wouldn’t admit that it reminded him of Steve.)  
“But I- I’d like to be able to help make people happy, I guess. I really think getting the right kinds of flowers to people can do that… even in a small way? I do have a lot to learn, but yeah. I think that’s important.” He trailed off. Bucky probably sounded like an idiot.  
But Asher grinned, holding out his hand.  
“Honestly, James, that’s why I got into this business. You get it, dude. Congratulations! The job’s yours.”  
Bucky raised his eyebrows, a surprised ghost of a smile coming to his face as he shook the man’s hand. His boss’ hand.  
He had a job. A job that was not killing people. The furthest job you could get from killing people, really (unless they were fatally allergic to pollen, Bucky thought morbidly).  
He had to admit he was pretty excited about it.  
“…so this week will be a trial period, but it’s really just a formality- oh shit! Lydia, take it from here. Terrence just texted me- massive code orange!” Asher said as he ran out the door, pulling his pink cardigan back on.  
Bucky looked at the manager, slightly alarmed. Lydia rolled her eyes fondly.  
“Spend too much time with Ash, you almost begin to believe flower deliveries are life and death. In case you were wondering, ‘code orange’ is when a delivery got damaged on its way. End of the world stuff here,” she deadpanned.  
A laugh barked out of Bucky. Lydia let out a small giggle too, and got up to show him a chart pinned to a cabinet in the kitchen area.  
“Yeah, this is Asher’s ridiculous code schedule. He wants everyone to learn it. Sometimes, on a slow day we’ll mix up colours on purpose to piss him off,” she smirked.  
Yeah, Bucky was going to enjoy it here.  
\--  
“Steve?”  
“Hey! How’d it go?”  
“Yeah, great – I start tomorrow.”  
Bucky could here Steve’s smile through the phone.  
“Ah, amazing! So proud of you, Buck. This- this is gonna be great.”  
Bucky smiled at Steve’s encouragement.  
“I know, it sounds way better than I thought it would be. The people are great and, I don’t know, Steve, I think I could really care about this? I know it sounds dumb, with my history, but flowers- they’re pretty cool. Agh, I feel like an asshole already-”  
“Bucky. This is what we want – this is what I want for you. For me too. We deserve to find what makes us happy. The fact that floristry could possibly bring you that? Makes it the best goddamn job in the world, pal.”  
Bucky softly smiled at this, walking down this quiet street in the middle of Nowhere, Virginia.  
This is what they’d planned for. They’d moved states, changed their names, together trying to shed every last drop of the lives they’d been forced into for the last 70 years.  
They really were getting out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was born out of a need for Steve and Bucky to be happy. some characters are vaguely based off characters in other fandoms, mainly because I am not great at OCs. I'll try not to make it too obvious though! If you can guess feel free to try haha.  
> I don't own a flower shop in Virginia, so if you happen to, allow for some artistic licence? Actually, I don't know much about flowers. Or America.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky arrived home and walked up their driveway, as ever vaguely amused at their new last names Steve had painted on the letterbox – Orwell/Asimov written in neat cursive. He remembered Sam and Natasha moaning how on the nose their fake names were, that someone could figure out they weren’t real – to which Steve had retorted that if anything was going to give them away, it probably wasn’t going to be their names.

They had chosen these names, slightly as a joke, slightly to help create a backstory; “How did we meet? Well our mutual friends thought it was hilarious we both shared a name with 50s science fiction writers and figured it was enough to throw us together. Funnily, it worked!” – Steve had shared variations of this story to neighbours so many times he almost believed it himself. It was a story so ridiculous but endearing that you couldn’t have made it up.

Personally, Bucky liked the irony – two writers who got wildly famous after he and Steve were ‘gone’, yet they had loved the work of both dearly in their younger years – Bucky still remembered Steve tracking down copies of the _Astounding Science Fiction_ magazine during their time as the howling commandos, and his joy of reading the first stories that would become _I, Robot_ (and one of the first things he did when he came back to himself was finish that goddamn series. It had resonated with him differently then – he felt more of a connection to the confused AI’s than he was comfortable with).

What went unspoken between Steve and Bucky was that still, Bucky felt more comfortable having a Russian last name. The country was a part of him, whether he liked it or not.

He walked into their little house to find Steve lounging on the couch with a book. When he heard Bucky come in his face lit up, smiling as he started to rise-

“No!” Bucky said quickly. An amused questioning look on Steve’s face was all it took for him to sink back down.

Bucky nestled himself into the space where Steve’s legs had been. Half leaning half sitting on the other man, he relaxed into the couch. Steve repositioned himself so Bucky could lean on his side.

“So, good day?” He murmured, hands running through Bucky’s newly shorter hair, which had slightly fallen out of its quaffed style.

Bucky smiled, relaxing into Steve’s hand.

“Yeah, pretty good day. I mean,” he said, for all intents and purposes now lying on Steve’s abdomen, “it’s gonna be weird. You know? Doing a regular 9 to 5. Like when we were kids. It seems so… normal?” Bucky trailed off uncertainly. He didn’t know how to put across his vague sense of unease. Like he was being lulled into a false sense of security by this normal, pleasant way to fill his days.

Although he struggled to put this into words, Steve understand. It was the same feeling he had when Sam first suggested to him – the only person to ever really suggest this to him – that he didn’t have to be a soldier. For a few hours he’d honestly been in a daze of confusion, even fear. Fighting, living each moment knowing it could be your last, putting the whole universe first – this had been his constant for so long. The thought that he could just. Up and leave? That scared him far more than that of jumping out a plane.

But at the same time it was also the first time he’d felt excitement, for anything, in too long.

So to an extent he could understand how Bucky was feeling – but he knew it was different. Steve had chosen this life. He hadn’t known it would get him to a different century, but he’d volunteered to be turned into a weapon. He’d signed away his chance at a normal life.

It was possibly the understatement of the millennium to say that Bucky hadn’t chosen this.

He tried to shake off these thoughts, before Bucky could detect his tension (or at least, before Bucky said anything about it.)

“I… Buck, this life we’re trying to live, it’s going to be hard. And weird, really weird, for a while. I do think it’ll be worth it.” Steve sighed. Bucky lightly held the arm that was resting in his head, prompting him to continue combing through the man’s hair. He really was like a cat sometimes.

“Fuck it,” Bucky finally said, a smile in his voice, his right hand wrapping under Steve’s leg in a way that sent a jolt of pleasantness up Steve’s body. There wasn’t much sexual about the gesture – sometimes Bucky just needed to be touching Steve in as many places as possible, as if he worried Steve would disappear if he couldn’t reach every inch of him. Steve couldn’t find the words to express the feeling Bucky using him as a human pillow gave him. It was almost too much – affection and contentedness and just, the overwhelming sense of how impossible it would be to deny that Bucky loved him back, that he trusted him and was at ease with him around. Bucky murmured about not caring about feeling out of sorts in this life, and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing. That feeling surged through Steve tenfold, and he couldn’t stop it from bubbling into a smile as he picked his book back up with one hand, other resting on Bucky’s neck.

Steve didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do. The thought of having so much life left honestly terrified him. But he knew if he had this, if he had Bucky, safe and at ease, he would be okay.

\--

“Buck. Wake up, you have woo-ork,” was the first thing Bucky heard the next morning, rolling his eyes at Steve’s stupid singsong voice in his ear. He cracked an eye open and glanced at the clock. It was 6.30.

He didn’t need to be at the shop until 9.

He could kill Steve.

Of course, in this state all he could do was mumble angrily and swat at Steve’s arm, rolling over and snuggling into the other man’s bare chest. He felt Steve’s laugh.

“Bucky. We’re going out for breakfast! Need to celebrate. And there’s no eggs in the house,” he added. He started to get up, and Bucky grunted even more angrily, pulling the other man back down. He threw his fake arm over his stomach, locking Steve in place.

“You’re not moving, Steve. Get food when I leave.”

\--

Half an hour later, they were sitting – Bucky very begrudgingly – in their favourite café, run by an elderly Egyptian man who always chatted away to them and gave them free refills and top ups. Probably because Bucky accidentally read out the Arabic part of the menu the first time they came here.

Now, he lay on the table, Steve looking annoyingly awake and chirpy at him.

Bucky did have to admit though, when his coffee and bacon pancakes came, that breakfast was a good idea.

He and Steve chatted a bit about the fourth harry potter, the movie they had watched the previous night after Bucky had woken from his long nap on Steve. They were slowly making their way through the series, both having vowed to read each book before watching the corresponding movie. After a heated discussion about the lack of Sirius’ character in the movie, who was Bucky’s favourite character, it was suddenly twenty past eight, and Bucky had to get to work.

“Okay, I have to go. You staying for a bit?” Bucky asked, running a hand over his hair and neck as he got up, unzipping his jacket as if to check his new uniform sweater hadn’t somehow disappeared.

“Yeah, I’m just going to have another coffee and then go for a quick run,” Steve replied, his eyes looking slightly concerned at Bucky’s nervousness.

“Okay, I’ll um, see you tonight then,” Bucky said quickly, nodding once. Steve looked at him seriously for a moment.

“Bucky. You’re gonna do great. Yesterday was the hard bit, right?” Bucky gave him a look of affirmation.

“Yeah, I guess.” Bucky rolled his eyes at himself.

“God, this is ridiculous. I’ll be fine. See ya later, Steve,” he said, heading outside, giving himself a shake before starting the short walk to the shop – until Steve ran out and caught his arm.

Steve looked into his eyes, so much emotion swimming in them, and gave him a soft, meaningful kiss. Bucky smiled against Steve’s mouth, wrapping his arm around Steve’s neck, pushing into him ever so slightly more before breaking the kiss. Steve grinned at Bucky.

“You better get going, pal!” Steve said, back in his happy go lucky mode, kissing Bucky on the cheek.

Bucky jogged towards _Adina’s Bouquet_ , suddenly eager to begin this chapter of his new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the response to the first chapter! this is a bit more to do with steve and bucky - where they're both at emotionally. I never imagined for this fic to end up so fluffy, yet here we are!  
> Also, take note of the added tags. These issues won't be cropping up for a while, but I will warn when they do appear.


End file.
